Emotional Labor and Place Attachment in Rural Tourism: The Mediating Role of Perceived Authenticity

Abstract

Place attachment can effectively increase the revisit rate of tourists, which is significant for the sustainability of rural tourism. However, previous studies have rarely explored what kind of host-guest emotional closeness can promote tourist place attachment. This study explores the relationship between local residents’ emotional labor strategy, perceived authenticity, and tourists’ place attachment based on the rural tourism context. A total of 266 valid questionnaires were collected from rural tourists in Yantai as the research subjects by random sampling method. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. The results showed that local residents’ deep acting positively influenced tourists’ place attachment, and perceived authenticity partially mediated the relationship between the two. The negative effect of surface acting on rural tourists’ place attachment was not significant.